Key Concepts

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This... is an Event

We've prebuilt a bucketload of these. Think of them like a tab in a spreadsheet with formulas and variables and dates and calculations. But we've done all of the math and hard work. And condensed all that nerdiness down into these cute little scenario building blocks. Revenue. Expenses. CoGS. Customers. Growth. Churn. Employees. KPIs. We've got them all.

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This... is a Scenario

Life, and business, are a series of interconnected Events. Each Event has a direct financial impact on the next following event. Causality. Deep.

whatifi works the same way. Connect together Events in different combinations to model out personal and professional scenarios. Every Event has an independent start and end date. Our fancy, schmancy algorithm then marches through every single Event, every single day, and calculates EVERYTHING. Net worth. Cash flow. Investment balances. Cats. Dogs. Customer counts. Projected revenue. The works.

This... is a Decision

Use a Decision Event to create multiple timelines. Trippy. Like something from Loki.

Now the fun stuff. Real life has options. whatif you go back to school? whatif you start a business? whatif you rent or buy or move back in with your parents?

Or whatif you push a purchase off by six months or a year or two?

Add a Decision to your Scenario Thread anytime you want to consider multiple options or timelines.

These... are Scenario Threads

Each unique path through the Scenario is called a Scenario Thread. Calculations from earlier in the Scenario trickle down to subsequent Events with different results depending on which Thread is calculating. Threads branch out from each Decision Event.

Even more powerful... making a change to an earlier "upstream" Event will march down the calculation stack and update multiple Scenario Threads at the same time. Editing an Event in an offshoot Thread will only affect that specific Scenario Thread.

No duplicating tabs in a spreadsheet. No messing around with formulas. No "Good question, Bill. Let me get back to you on that...."

FU Excel.

Adding and Editing Events

You can make highly customized scenarios by adding and inserting Events all willy nilly into your Scenario Threads. Copy and Paste. Temporarily bypass calculations. Ninja level 4 - Events can be grouped and you can perform actions on the entire group.

First steps - how to add and edit Events.

The Event Menu

Add An Event

Left-click on any Event and Boom. Things get more colourful. Heck. Right-click on the Event if you really want to be bedazzled. Get access to all of the Event functions and operations.

Even more important is that orange circle with the white "Plus" sign... click here to APPEND a new Event after the current one.

Clicking on the ADD icon will open the Event Picker (more details below). This shows you, by category, all of the pre-built financial Events that are available to you. After picking an Event, it will be added AFTER the currently selected Event. Happy clicking!

Insert An Event

Sometimes you may want to INSERT an Event in-between two other Events.

Easy peasy.

Hover over the Connection Line between Events and use the ADD icon to open the Event Picker. After picking an Event, it will be added INBETWEEN the two Events.

The Event Picker

This is where we stash all of our building block Events - categorized by types. About 30 so far and we're adding more each week.

In the near future, you will be able to create, publish and share your own. Nerd level 7.

Don't forget to check out the Utility Events tab. This includes high-level, power-user type operations like Filters, Containers, Goals, Modifiers and adding Decisions.

As you get deeper into whatifi, these Utility Events will make more sense.

Our Utility Events - uber-powerful, high-level magic

The Event Picker - this tab has most of our main Events, grouped by categories

Navigating whatifi

There are two main sections in whatifi - The Baseline and The Scenario Canvas.

The Baseline

Here. Now. Today. We call this the Baseline.

While a User can create many different Scenarios, they can only have a single Baseline.It contains everything that is real and current. Your bank account balance, your student loan debt, your current mortgage or the menu price you currently charge for a super-sized fried cod taco in your seaside seafood shanty.

Every Scenario inherits the information in the Baseline and uses those values as a calculation starting point.

While it is not required to add Events to your Baseline, we do recommend it. Why? Because any real changes that happen to your or your business, like getting a raise or losing a key customer account, can be updated here. And because every Scenario you create inherits the values in the Baseline, ALL of your Scenarios will update at once.

The Scenario Canvas

The future. Tomorrow. Someday. We build all of our individual Scenarios in the Scenario Canvas.

Here you take the output of your Baseline and blue sky all of the possible Events and Scenario Threads and decisions and goals you can dream of. Book a trip to Disneyland? Increase your mortgage payments? Rob a bank. Jack the price up by 25% on that super-sized fried cod taco?

You can create (and share) multiple different Scenarios. Each Scenario can have multiple Scenario Threads.

Important Sections in the Scenario Canvas

The Canvas

This is where the magic happens. Build and interact with your Scenarios here.

Add, edit, bypass, lock, test, build, plan.

The Scenario Manager

This is where you create and manage all of your Scenarios.

Click through a Sample Scenario to get a better

understanding of how whatifi works.

Create a New Scenario

Start from scratch.

Or, use one of our templates to get a head start.

The Decision Engine & Thread List Manager

That's a mouthful.

As you add more and more Events and Decisions to your Scenario, the list of possible outcomes gets longer and more daunting. Just like real life.

With whatifi, we support the ability to not only do financial calculations, but you can also add star-rating style ranking to your Events.

Use the Decision Engine Slider to sort your Threads from Most Profitable to the highest Ranked Threads.

For financial rankings, sort by Monthly or Cumulative. Use the drop-down to access all of the different Accounts and Ledgers, to further refine your sort order.

Scenario Threads

Each Scenario Thread tile represents a single, unique path through your Scenario.

Click on each Thread to highlight all of the Events that make up your Thread in the Canvas.

You can also see each Thread in the Scenario Graph at the bottom of the screen.

Compare Threads against each other and see how they pan out over time.

The Decision Engine & Thread List Manager

This is a graph. You know how it works.

A few unique things you can do here....

For each Scenario Thread, you can display different Account types, either Monthly or Cumulative, and compare multiple Scenario Threads against each other.

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